The SF writers I'm interested in tend to be hackers. Peter Watts tells a fantastic story about self-modifying code that, while completely unintelligent, can pass the Turing test. Karl Schroeder describes what happens when Unix-style file permissions become meatspace DRM. Ken MacLeod's dueling utopia are informed, I think, by the fissioning and forking of online communities and open source projects.

Derek WoodgatePrincipal, The Futures Lab

I am most inspired by detailed references to biomorphed and genetically transformed humans and to artificial autonomous agents, because ultimately, say around 2020, I see incredible progress being made in these areas. In Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon, consciousness is digitized and can be downloaded into a new body. Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear deals with expansive shifts in evolutionary genetics and new viral epidemics.

Lane JenningsResearch director, The Futurist

I've been most stimulated in my futures thinking lately by women writers in the field: Ursula Le Guin, Octavia Butler, and, most recently, Connie Willis. Take her short story "Even the Queen." The issue of whether women will ever conquer menstruation - or want to - is not the stuff of heroic epics, but it has a lot more to do with what life in the future will really be like than a lot of heart-pounding suspense tales.